Who are the poor these days? You’ve got some people up north and in places like that who are quite poor, but they all have mobile phones, being poor, and they’ve got microwave ovens, being poor, and they’ve got televisions, being poor. Compare that to 60 years ago. If you really want to know what poor is like go and live where I lived in Hackney, where you didn’t have enough money for the electric, didn’t have a shilling for the meter. [1]

Parents sleeping on kitchen floors because they don’t have enough beds. Disabled people driven to suicide as a result of losing their benefits. Immigrant families, like his own once was, working all hours of day and night just to make ends meet,” he said.
“The reality of poverty today is a million miles from his rosy picture of it. But as someone who’s been a multi-millionaire for the last 40 years, why would he know? [1]

Some poor people have microwave ovens which cost less than the standard cookers that most poor people managed to get 60 years ago. Some have standard cookers, some have both but a few have neither. Some poor people pay for mobile phones or cheap second hand Televisions when they've got money. Then if there's an unexpected bill or for any other reason the money gets tight things are the way they were 60 years ago. There's not enough money for basics like food and fuel.